WHY RIVERBED CAME INTO PICTURE ?

Riverbed is a WAN optimizer.

what is WAN optimizer ?

Riverbed simply optimizes or changes or modulates the traffic passing through WAN link.

Riverbed is a separate physical device.

How it looks like ?

But, prior to moving ahead,

Why Riverbed exists or came into the picture ?

Every company needs a WAN link for communication purpose.

WAN link is the leased circuit from a ISP (Internet Service Provider). Bandwidth of the leased circuit is provided by the ISP in a predefined format or standard.

As an example, in India we have the E1’s circuit ( 2.048 Mbps) & in USA we have the T1’s ( 1.54 Mbps ) circuit.

As name suggests, we need to pay for the leased circuit, leased means we are taking something on rent. we need to pay for that. So, every company wants to save the money.

NOW, Riverbed enters into the picture as a money saver.

Riverbed optimizes the data or traffic in such a way that my Bandwidth requirement gets reduced.

Example: If without Riverbed, my bandwidth requirement is 1.5 Mbps. Then definitely after deploying Riverbed, my bandwidth requirement will be less than 1.5 Mbps.

How Riverbed is connected in the network ?

There can be number of methods for Riverbed deployment. we will talk about the most common or simplest one.

In a Enterprise network, when WAN traffic enters, traffic first hits a Layer 3 device, normally a Router. Just after this Layer 3 device, Riverbed is connected, then comes another network device. So, whatever is the traffic, complete traffic will pass through Riverbed. Riverbed as per its mechanism reduces the amount of traffic.

In layman language, this one is similar to the ZIP folder we create for any folder, just to reduce the size.

Here, servers are placed in Corporate Data Center. Different applications are running on servers.

Home users, Users from client location & other users all are coming to Corporate Data Center to access the application.

So, all the users coming through internet will first hit as Layer 3 device, then comes firewall, next to firewall is Riverbed as shown in the diagram.

If number of rules are present for the same source or destination, Then rules will work exactly similar to Access-list logic, whichever rule comes first, that will be followed.

==> ASYMMETRIC ROUTING

Riverbed do not support Asymmetric routing. Riverbed will show the alarm, if there is Asymmetric routing happening for any source or destination. Asymmetric routing leads to Latency in the network. This is the common problem in most of the networks.

Two solutions:

Either remove the Asymmetric routing from the network

or,

Bypass or Pass Though the particular source or destination, which is facing issues due to Asymmetric routing.

==> EXCEPTION

Riverbed is not meant for optimizing Voice traffic, UDP traffic. As, voice traffic is considered to be the critical one, we cannot bear latency in case of voice or video traffic.

2 comments

Hi Sohail,
Thanks for the appreciation.
I am sure you will fall in love with this technology.
Its so strongly used in Data center’s, you will get very good exposure in most of the networks.
Thanks .. Keep Networking ..